Does it catch Hacker News comments, or only stories?

Both are collected. A comment has no title of its own on Hacker News, so for now its Slack alert links to it without one — open it and FishOut shows the thread around it. The sample here is a story.

How fast does a post reach Slack?

Hacker News is checked every hour on every plan, and every 15 minutes for keywords you mark Fast on a paid plan. Once a post is read, the alert is sent at once; only the follow-ups in a burst wait for the digest.

Can Show HN posts go to one channel and complaints to another?

Yes, with two channels and two floors, or more precisely with an agent: on a paid plan an agent can notify a channel only for posts with a given label, such as Complaint.

Do I need a paid Slack plan?

No. Incoming webhooks work on Slack’s free plan, and Slack alerts are on every FishOut plan, Free included.

Integrations SlackHacker News

Hacker News alerts in Slack

The usual way to get Hacker News into Slack is a small script that polls Algolia for a keyword and posts every hit to a webhook. It works until your keyword is a common word, or you launch, and the channel fills with every comment that said it. FishOut reads each post first and only posts the ones that matter to you.

Start free The Slack guide

Checked hourly; every 15 minutes for Fast keywords on paid plans. Slack alerts are on every plan.

[01] WHAT ARRIVES/ SLACK MESSAGE

A Hacker News post, in Slack

An Ask HN thread looking for a replacement for a competitor: Reply now, because it is fresh and asking for exactly what you do.

#brand-watch

FishOutAPPnow

Reply now: a relevant post on Hacker News

Ask HN: What are you using instead of Notchmail now that it is per-seat?

Relevance 93 · Competitor · Neutral · by pkessler

Hint: Answer the question directly

Labels: Asking for recommendations, Comparison

Open in FishOut·View on Hacker News

[02] WHAT GETS FILTERED/ NOISE

What never reaches Slack

2 Hacker News matches that go to Filtered instead, each with its reason.

Filtered · Hacker News

Who is hiring? (October)Hacker News

Acme (remote) — we use AcmeMail for support, Notchmail for sales…

Filtered · Off-brief

A job ad that lists your product in its stack is a match, not a conversation.

Comment · item 41880455Hacker News

Notch mail? You mean the notch on the MacBook…

Filtered · Different meaning

A short brand name collides with ordinary words on HN more than anywhere else.

[03] KEYWORDS THAT WORK HERE/ HACKER NEWS

For Hacker News, into Slack

More keyword shapes are on monitoring Hacker News.

Your product name, and your domain

HN links are often the only mention of a product in a Show HN title. Tracking “acmemail.com” catches submissions whose title never names you.

“alternative to” + a competitor

Ask HN threads are where engineers ask for a replacement, and they arrive with the Reply now call while they are fresh.

A floor of 65

HN threads are discussion-heavy, and a comment that weighs you against a competitor at 65 is worth a team glance. Lower than you would set for a phone.

Settings · Notifications

Slack

Hacker News → a channel

Healthy

Relevance floor65

Eventsmention.scored

Batch bursts5 min

[04] SET IT UP/ 4 STEPS

Four steps, about five minutes

Hacker News into Slack, start to finish.

1
Create a Slack app and turn on Incoming Webhooks
Walkthrough on the Slack guide.
2
Paste it under Settings → Notifications → Slack
Then send a test.
3
Add Hacker News keywords under Keywords
Start with: Your product name, and your domain.
4
Floor 65, mention.scored
Batching stays on.

Slack’s one message a second, on a launch day

Slack documents about one message per second per channel, shared by every app that posts there. A burst digest is the difference between a launch-day thread arriving as one message and a run of 429s.

[05] A BUSY DAY/ DIGEST

When Hacker News gets loud

Hacker News is bursty by nature: a post reaches the front page and forty comments mention you inside an hour. Slack accepts about one message a second per channel, so a script that posts each hit can run into 429s on exactly the day you most want the alerts. Here the first post arrives at once and the rest of the window becomes one digest that names the spike.

#brand-watch · 5-min digest

FishOutAPP+5m

Spike: “acmemail” — 34 posts today, usually 6 · 3 new mentions for AcmeMail

Launch HN: AcmeMail, the shared inbox that sorts itself · Hacker News · 96
How does this compare with Notchmail at ten seats? · Hacker News · 90
We tried it last month; the import was painless · Hacker News · 84

Open in FishOut

[06] THE RECIPE YOU WOULD OTHERWISE BUILD/ DIY

Val Town “templateHackerNewsAlert”

A scheduled script searches Hacker News for posts from the last 24 hours with a keyword hard-coded in its source and posts every hit to a Slack incoming webhook.

Deduplication — a fixed 24-hour lookback re-posts the same hits if it runs more than daily
Any filter beyond the keyword
Editing code to change a keyword

Val Town “templateHackerNewsAlert” compared with FishOut
	The recipe	F5Bot Gold	FishOut
What reaches Slack	Every match	Keyword matches	Posts read at 65 or above
A busy hour	A message per match	Instant or scheduled	One now, one digest
Slack delivery	See its source	$49.99/mo, Gold	$0 on Free